It appears that little accurate information is known about Dale Lombard, a young man who lived in San Diego for the past nine months and made a name for himself writing checks to local GLBT charities — checks that subsequently bounced. To some he claimed to be the heir to the Enterprise Rental Car fortune, to others said he was kicked out of his father’s house in San Luis Obispo and moved to San Diego to start a new life. He also claimed to have worked for a suicide hotline and spent some time working as a correctional officer.

After living in San Diego for eight months, Lombard began to work his way into the gay community, becoming involved with the Imperial Court and their many fundraising efforts. He was introduced to Robi Cox, the owner of Bacchus House and Emperor of the Imperial Court, by one of the security guards who worked the front door of Bacchus House after Lombard expressed an interest in starting a production company. Soon Lombard was sponsoring the prize money for Bacchus House’s “It’s Raining Men” wet underwear contest under the name of his production company, Dayo Productions.

Before long Lombard was attending fundraisers and writing checks to organizations including the Imperial Court, The Center and the Live and Let Live Alano Club. Because of his generosity Cox granted him the title of Baron of the Court.

“We just assumed here’s a nice guy who’s giving to charity,” Cox said. “Who would think that someone would rip off charity? When someone’s giving to charity you trust people.”

The Imperial Court did not find out that the checks were bad until well after the holiday season.

“He had written several checks to the Imperial Court for fundraisers,” Cox said. “We had a fundraiser for The Center for my Christmas party. He wrote a check for $2,100 and it bounced.”

It was at that Christmas party that Lombard began seeing a young man named Wesley Shaw. According to Shaw, the two first met at Bacchus House, but did not get to know each other well until the night of Cox’s Christmas Party.

Lombard apparently told Shaw that his credit cards and ATM cards had been cancelled because they had been used fraudulently over the Internet, then convinced him to accept checks in exchange for cash. The first check Lombard wrote to Shaw was for $4,600, on Dec. 16. Over the course of the next week Lombard wrote Shaw five more checks totaling $36,000. All of the checks eventually bounced, and when Shaw arranged a meeting to confront Lombard about the situation Lombard failed to show. Shaw was informed that Lombard had notified the police, claiming that Shaw had actually stolen the checkbook and written the fraudulent checks.

According to Sergeant Al Guaderrama of the San Diego Police Department’s Financial Crimes Division, both Lombard and Shaw are currently being investigated. Guaderrama would not comment on the specifics of the ongoing investigation.

Shaw wasn’t the only person Lombard allegedly scammed during his time in San Diego.

After ordering a car from Limodudes.com and not arriving for his scheduled pick up Lombard offered to pay the $200 to cover the cost of the car and the driver’s time. Jonathan Scott, one of the owners of Limodudes, went to Lombard’s apartment to collect the cash. “We knew something was up because he lives in an old apartment building a couple of blocks behind Bacchus House, yet he claims he has hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Scott said. “So we got a clue there that something was up.”

While working at David’s Coffee Shop in Hillcrest and at Spreckles Theater, Lombard convinced a local man named David Tabor to help him rent a car through Enterprise Rental Car.

“The first time he said that he had to go up and see his dad,” Tabor said. “He was paying something like $60 a day and I said ‘Dale, I can get you a better rate than that, I can get you a corporate rate’ going through [the business where I work] and that’s how it all started with the cars.”

Lombard drove rental cars from October through Jan. 9, when the contract Tabor had signed expired.

To start his business, Dayo Productions, Lombard convinced another local man, Philip Taffie, to open a joint checking account with him, claiming he could not open one himself as a result of ruined credit from a previous boyfriend.

Lombard left San Diego on Dec. 26. Checks that he had written from the joint account began to bounce and red flags started going up all over town.

Lombard would not comment directly, but did threaten a lawsuit against the Gay and Lesbian Times in regards to statements made against him in the “Conversations With Nicole” column written by Nicole Murray Ramirez that appeared in issue 836 of the Times. When informed that the Gay and Lesbian Times would continue investigating his activities, Lombard said that if it did anything to damage his business, Dayo Productions, it would “only add more fuel to the fire.”

Two days later the Times received a phone call from an individual claiming to be Lombard’s brother-in-law. The caller left a message, claiming that Lombard had committed suicide because of the stories being written about him.

The Times contacted police agencies and medical examiner’s offices in San Diego, Fresno, Bakersfield and San Francisco; all places where Lombard was alleged to be during the time after he fled San Diego, but there was no record of a suicide fitting his description.

On Jan. 13 the Times received a tip from Sergeant Guaderrama of the SDPD that Lombard had been taken into custody for a parole violation. On Saturday, Jan. 10, Lombard was admitted to the Contra Costa County Martinez Detention Facility and was then transferred to El Dorado State Prison, where he is currently being held.

According to his arrest record, Lombard originally entered the state prison system on Feb. 25, 2000, and was then paroled on Sept. 4, 2001. He returned to prison on Jan. 2, 2002, and was paroled on Aug. 22, 2002. He has previously been convicted on two counts of vehicle theft and one count of forgery. An investigation of his recent activity is ongoing.